


Target: Forever

by so_shhy



Series: Portfolio of Pining 'verse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 07:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2379956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/so_shhy/pseuds/so_shhy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil's the nicest guy Clint knows. It's too bad they want different things.</p><p>A look at Clint and Phil's story in the Portfolio of Pining 'verse.</p><p>(Can also be read as a standalone ficlet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Target: Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raiining](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiining/gifts).



> This is a birthday present for [raiining](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiining/pseuds/raiining), inspired by a lovely [photo prompt](http://38.media.tumblr.com/6dd7666f40ff82106de26c12b43ba28d/tumblr_ncl3lyFa3c1s55y0yo1_500.jpg) from [hils](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Hils/pseuds/Hils) .
> 
> Huge thanks to [desert_neon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sproutgirl/pseuds/desert_neon) for the beta and Ameripick!

"So you're a cop," said Clint, snuffling a little against the wad of wet tissue he was holding to his nose. The guy - Phil, he'd said his name was - didn't look like a cop. His clothes were all wrong: soft, expensive wool sweater, nice shoes, cute-but-nerdy glasses with thick black frames. He wasn't an asshole, either. In Clint's experience, that was a defining feature of a cop. "You got a uniform? I'm totally into guys in uniform."

Phil laughed. Seen up close, he had crinkles around his eyes, just visible behind the glasses. "I do. I've got my army uniform too, if you like."

"I like," said Clint. "Really? Army, then cop? I guess that's how you got so badass." He gave a half-smile, wiping away another trickle of blood. "Thanks for helping me out. Fucking homophobic assholes."

Phil had been awesome, wading into the fight. He was pretty awesome afterwards too, commandeering the back room of a nearby bar to sit Clint down and patch him up, even if he had ideas about going to police stations and giving statements and other stuff Clint really couldn't get behind.

He also gave Clint his number ("Please call to let me know you're okay."), which was promising.

***

Except, unfortunately, it turned out that the number thing really was about checking in to let Phil know he was okay.

"I'm not interested in casual anymore," said Phil a couple of days later, when he - quite kindly - refused Clint's come-on.

Clint was disappointed, sure, but he couldn't argue. He'd only been looking for a good time with a hot older guy, maybe more than just one night, but definitely no strings attached. Phil, however, was looking for someone to settle down with and give dinner parties and get a dog, or whatever that kind of person did, and he didn't want to get distracted by fucking some punk in his twenties. It was fine.

Since Phil was the kind of solid citizen who was way out of Clint's league in anything but the, _'Hey, wanna fuck?'_ stakes, that should have been the end of things. But there was something steady and reassuring and just plain nice about Phil. Clint hadn't come across a whole lot of nice before, so a day or so later he plucked up his nerve and tentatively asked Phil out for coffee-as-friends instead. Against all probability, Phil said yes. They got coffee at a little hole-in-the-wall place somewhere between their apartments. It was easy, relaxed. At the end of it, they set a day to do it again.

After a while it became a regular thing, him and Phil, coffee, or a drink after work, or brunch on a weekend. Over the course of a few months Phil heard a lot about Clint's life - his work and friends and nights out, the fights that were completely not his fault, even the guys he picked up. In return, Clint heard about the apartment Phil was renovating, and how much Phil enjoyed starting over as a beat cop after being a hands-off higher-up in the Army. Phil, who had gorgeous crinkles around his eyes when he smiled, and broad shoulders under his sweaters, and who Clint still totally wanted to fuck.

***

"We could have fun together," he said, a few months in. "I bet you always wanted a hot boytoy. Give me a shot. I'll back off when you find Mr. Right."

Phil shook his head. "I can't say I'm not flattered," he said, with a smile that showed he really meant it, "but I'm too old for relationship drama, and I've done the breakup thing too often. It's not worth dating someone who doesn't want the same things that I do."

It made sense. They were at different places in their lives. Clint totally got that. His focus was mostly on enjoying New York, where everything was new and fun and exciting. It would be even more fun if he could hook up with Phil, but it he could live without that.

He still couldn't believe he was really a New Yorker now, after living in the ass-end of Iowa at the orphanage, and touring bumfuck everywhere with the circus. The city was quickly becoming somewhere he could call home. His job was going great, he was making friends, and he actually had stuff of his own in his apartment. His couch had been bought new from a real store. When his latest one-night-stand had left it stained he'd been honestly annoyed with himself.

Sometimes he felt almost like a grownup.

***

"I really like you, Phil," he said, when the one-year anniversary of their first coffee date rolled around. "Like, _really_ like you. Don't you like me too?"

"I like you," said Phil. His fond smile did strange things to Clint's insides.

"So why not?"

"Can you really imagine being with me for the rest of your life?" said Phil. "That's what I'm looking for. Forever."

Clint had never had a relationship that lasted more than three months. He hadn't had one that lasted longer than a night, since meeting Phil. Forever was a hell of a long time.

"You think about it, though, right?" he asked, a few weeks later, eating ice cream in the park. "Not just the sex stuff. You think about _me_."

He thought about the sex stuff a lot, but not as much as he thought about Phil.

Phil didn't smile this time. "Clint, don't," he said. "We've already talked about this."

***

Life went on. It went forward, taking Clint further and further away from the weird kid with the broken hearing aids and the bruises, still struggling with _C is for Cat_ in fifth grade, and the carnie living day to day and town to town, watching people's lips shape nasty words, _'Double-check your locks, those types are all criminals_.' He had a place in the world. Things were so much better.

***

"Please," he said. "Come on, Phil. Please. We'd be good together."

Phil sighed. "Maybe we would be, for a while," he said. "And then you'll realise you're not ready to settle down, and you'll move on. I don't want to live through that."

***

Despite his best efforts to get over it, there were times when Clint sat morosely alone in bars and drowned his sorrows, and times he called Phil and left messages he regretted in the morning, and that one time he and a lovelorn kid named Bucky Barnes turned up at Phil's apartment at 3am and serenaded him with the Captain America theme song.

"I miss you," he said, over one of their now-rare coffees. They were seeing each other less and less. It wasn't fair to either of them, Phil said.

"I miss you too."

"Then _why?_ "

"Because we want different things," said Phil.

Like a broken record, Clint thought, gritting his teeth. He almost said, _'Who the fuck are you to tell me what I want?'_ but he wasn't sure that he knew what he wanted himself.

***

Clint acquired a dog. It was something of an accident, and probably not advisable for someone who couldn't keep a houseplant alive, but it worked out surprisingly well. Clint called him Lucky, because he'd told Phil that it was the best name for a dog. He didn't go out so much after that. Lucky didn't like being left alone, and Natasha liked Lucky, so she came over more often. Besides, even when Nat wasn't around, the apartment was less lonely with another living creature there.

In the grocery store one day he saw Phil picking out avocados. At Phil's side was an undeniably hot guy of about thirty-five, greying just slightly at the temples, resting his hand in the small of Phil's back. Phil looked up, caught Clint's eye. Looked away.

That night Clint went out, got drunk, and went home with a guy close to his own age. They had athletic, meaningless sex. Clint walked home in the early hours of the morning, feeling empty.

***

Sometimes he called Phil. Phil didn't always answer, but when he did it was as easy and comfortable as ever. They talked. Phil heard about Lucky, and Clint's archery sessions with the local kids. Clint heard very little about Avocado Guy; Phil mentioned that it hadn't worked out, but not why or how. It seemed like he didn't want to talk about it, so Clint didn't ask.

Nearly two years had gone by since the day they met. Thinking about how short those years seemed, Clint found that forever didn't loom quite so large as it once had.

***

It was a Saturday in fall, and he'd just come back from taking Lucky for a walk. The leaves were crisp and brown out in the park, and the world seemed populated with couples and families. He picked up the phone to call Phil, not really knowing why. It went to voicemail, which perhaps made it easier to blurt out the unexpected words.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he said. "I love you, Phil."

***

Phil called back two hours later.

"I don't believe you," he said, "but I don't care anymore."

Clint snorted. "Christ, you're patronising asshole," he said, not sure if the tremble in his voice was from laughter or anger or fear. "I meant what I said. I know what I want."

"Coffee tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Okay."

***

The word _forever_ played itself over and over in his head on the way to the coffee shop. He went slowly, lingering at crosswalks, pretending to himself that he wasn't playing for time. Forever. Nobody could promise that a relationship would work out, but he had promised that he was aiming for forever, whether he and Phil made it or not. At that moment, feeling the unexpected, choking terror rise up in him, he wasn't sure if it was a promise he could keep.

After all this time, and all this heartache, he still didn't know if he'd really meant what he'd told Phil on the phone, or if it was a lie born of desperation. Maybe, a year or so into the relationship, it would all become too much, and he would freak out and run for the hills. Maybe he'd set himself up to hurt Phil worse than ever. No wonder Phil didn't trust him.

Finally his dragging feet turned the last corner. There was the coffee shop, and there, standing at the serving window waiting for his order, bills in hand ready to pay, was Phil. He looked around as Clint drew near, and his eyes crinkled as he smiled.

Maybe to anyone else he was just some hot older guy with geeky glasses and a too-nice sweater - the kind of guy a dumb kid from the ass-end of Iowa might pick for a quick fuck, no strings attached - but that didn't even scratch the surface. He was Phil. He was _Clint's_ Phil. And suddenly it was fine to hope that he would be Clint's forever.

Phil didn't seem to be aware that the server was holding out his drink. He was just standing there, looking at Clint. Clint raised a hand in greeting, breathed a, "Hi," and found himself smiling so wide his face hurt. He moved in a rush, crowding up into Phil's space, laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. He'd promised _forever_ before they'd even had their first kiss.

It was the best first kiss of his life.

Phil's fingers were tangled possessively in his hair, while his other hand groped blindly to set the bills on the counter. "Keep the change," he said over his shoulder to the server. "Keep the drink, too." He kissed Clint again, brief and fierce. "We need to make up for lost time."

Clint grinned, leaning into him, feeling the urgency between them, but also feeling weirdly relaxed. Everything was easy. "No rush," he said. "We've got all the time in the world".


End file.
